Roland Blues Cube Stage with G&L Legacy sounds "too clean"

[mikul]

Hello all,

 

after seeing a lot of youtube videos and playing around in the shop, I got myself a BC stage as I'm a "bedroom" player... I brought it home and hooked up my G&L legacy and I must say that the amp sounds definitely more clean - i.e. it does not nicely break on clean channel with increased volume, it stays pretty clean all the way. That's definitely not the case when you watch video reviews on youtube.

 

The obvious conclusion seems that G&L pickups are not "hot" enough? I'm really not an expert so any advice would be very appreciated. Is that the case for G&L pickups? I tried to lift the pickups up but it didn't make much difference..

 

I wouldn't think it's possible I got a deficient amp model which produces less gain?

 

thanks!

[Chris Loeffler]

While I don't own one, given it is a modeling amp, I wouldn't expect them to build in a ton of breakup into the clean channel. Is there a reason you don't use the other channel for more distorted sounds? I can't imagine your pickups are the issue... unless you are talking active versus passive, there shouldn't be that big a difference. Obviously, a pedal could give you breakup on the clean channel...

[WRGKMC]

Most solid state amps with clean channels produce undistorted sound all the way up the dial. Tubes are different that may produce clean tones half way up the dial and begin to saturate above a certain level.

 

This all falls under the category of Tubes vs Solid State. A debate that's been going on since the First solid state amps were built. If a transistor amp is pushed to saturation its breakup is awful. Sounds like a bad guitar cord or a blown speaker. This is why manufacturers design the amps to remain clean all the way up to maximum volume.

 

I'll also add, when power transistors do begin to breakup, its a very narrow margin between them distorting and burning out.

 

SS amps instead get their sound through preamp saturation the same way as guitar pedals do. One low power transistor overdriving another or by using clipping diodes. They've added digital modeling as well which does these kinds of things in digital form. Not sure what your amp uses but its immaterial. Your power transistors run clean no matter what, its simply the signal thay are fed that makes them sound like they are overdriving.

 

There have been many creative things to make power transistors operate more like tubes too. FET's and Mosfets are the best by far in providing tube like tones. Some manufacturers like my old Sunn amp, have used inductors to produce the kinds of compression tubes produce. My Marshall Valve state uses a preamp tube to get preamp drive and uses a bias switch to produce a brown tone from the Mosfet power transistors.

 

Vox uses a circuit called a valve reactor to emulate power tubes. It uses a 12AX7 tube to drive a SS power stage and there's additional circuitry to emulate an actual output transformer. https://dolphinmusicguitar.wordpress.com/tag/what-is-valve-reactor-technology/ This gets the amp sounding closer to a tube amp when running a clean or driven channel.

 

The Rolland cubes use plain old transistors for many of their cube amps, not FET's or Mosfets. Any kind of tube like saturation will need to be achieved by preamp or modeling drive.

 

 

[Mr.Grumpy]

... I brought it home and hooked up my G&L legacy and I must say that the amp sounds definitely more clean - i.e. it does not nicely break on clean channel with increased volume' date=' it stays pretty clean all the way. [/quote']

 

Have you read the amp's manual? Have you tried the CRUNCH channel? Turned the "power adjuster" DOWN?

 

The obvious conclusion seems that G&L pickups are not "hot" enough? I'm really not an expert so any advice would be very appreciated. Is that the case for G&L pickups?!

I own a G&L Legacy, the pickups are basically strat pickups, the output is fine unless there's a problem with your guitar. Single coil pickups are rarely as "hot" as humbuckers but there shouldn't be any problem getting a distortion tone from the Blues Cube but you have to use the crunch channel.